


Evening Sunset

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [57]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: All aboard the Feels train, Alternate Universe, But also, Expanded Universe, F/M, GFY, I am not specific in the violence because nope, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Better, Listen this has all the trigger warnings okay?, PTSD, Sad with a Happy Ending, but a minor is raped more than once even if I keep it off screen, but don't forget that this could be triggery as fuck, discussions of child abuse, figuring out how to have healthy sex after a crap introduction to intimacy, healing in weird places, here there be draigons, it's hard to learn how to be happy but fuckdammit Eve is going to figure it out, mind the warnings and mind the tags, or at least not a miserable ending, people doing good things for each other, this is not a happy childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: It’s dumb luck more than anything else when Eve Koh ends up working for Vilmahr Grahrk.
Relationships: Eve Koh/Others, Eve Koh/Thol Heeniir
Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [57]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/11260
Comments: 120
Kudos: 528





	Evening Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it really is a new Re-Entry story, set in the verse's original timeline...and yes, I have another Re-Entry chapter in the works for where I left off before Splinters. *g* (And at least one more chapter for Splinters, if not two.)
> 
> Storytime first, though!
> 
> I started this story back in 2012, for Re-Entry's 10-year anniversary that October, doing a "women of Star Wars" theme sort of deal. I didn't finish this story until today. 
> 
> Yep, that's right. I was actively working on it and this story still managed to fight me for SEVEN FUCKING YEARS.
> 
> Now it's Re-Entry's _seventeen-year anniversary_ as of this past October, so...yeah, I missed that date, and the original year, so let's call this a Very Late Hobbity Birthday Fic for November with Feelings Attached. (Largely unbeta'd, if I find fuck-ups, I'll fix them.)
> 
> **This is one of those times when the author is begging you to please definitely Read The Tags.**

When she is born, squalling and naked and cold, the wet hair on her head is very dark, yet still shines in the evening sun like the warm embers of a fire. Her mother, enchanted and possibly half out of her mind on painkillers from the difficult birth, names her Evening Fire Kohvec.

Evening doesn’t realize that they are poor until she visits a school friend’s house for the first time. Everything is clean and gleaming, and there is a floor under her feet instead of sand. Her friend doesn’t care at all; her parents take no notice of Eve’s simple clothes and welcome her like an honored guest.

She is still puzzling over the discrepancy when she goes home after dinner, her belly full of food that she couldn’t even name. “Why are we poor, Mama?” she asks her mother.

Her mother smiles. “We’re poor in funds, but not in love, dearheart,” Mama says, and sweeps her into a hug. Evening decides that it’s okay to be poor.

Mama’s belly is getting round, and she says that there will be a new baby sister or brother soon. Evening is so excited at the thought of being a big sister that she scavenges flat wood from the neighborhood junkyard and puts it in the baby’s tiny room, piece by careful piece, fitting it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Her new sibling will have a real floor, just like the rich people.

Upon seeing it, her mother declares Evening Fire to be the smartest child who ever lived.

The baby is born. She is a little girl with dark hair like Evening’s, but the baby’s skin is burnished copper, not at all like her own warm ivory. Evening loves her at first sight, even if the tiny thing is screaming at the top of her lungs like a mad banshee.

The doctors at the neighborhood clinic give them baby blankets and medicines and, after a short talk with Evening, paper vouchers for food at the local market. They tell Evening to use them one at a time, and when she runs out, to come get more.

Evening tells her mother that she should have tons of babies, if folks are going to pay them with free food. Mama smiles and shakes her head, and tries to explain the difference between helping hands and taking advantage, a lecture that goes entirely over Evening’s head because she’s already daydreaming about fresh fruit.

Mama names the baby Sunset. Evening Fire tells her mother in a matter-of-fact voice that Mama has way too much of a thing with the sun, and maybe they should name Sunset something else.

“Well, what would you suggest, then?” Mama asks, smiling as she nurses the baby.

Evening purse her lips. “Uh.” She can’t think of anything. Her teachers call her a creative and clever little girl, but she can’t even think of proper baby names.

Mama smiles. “Sunset Gold Kohvec it is, then.”

She’s eight when she realizes why they’re poor, and the knowledge burns her, makes her feel real anger for the very first time. Evening gets free schooling and paper vouchers because she’s a native of Bastion. Her mother, an immigrant, is allowed _nothing_. Glorianna Kohvec cannot receive licensing, transport passes, work grants, bank loans or accounts, training, or any kind of assistance. She works secret, short-lived jobs that provide just enough credits to put clothing on their backs, to pay a pittance in rent of their stupid, floorless shack, and to buy bland, cheap food at the local market.

She is allowed the tale of her father when Evening pesters her mother for two ten-days straight. Glorianna readily admits that she allowed Vindal Dex’s sweet words to sway her. She went with him to Bastion on the promise of a grand wedding and a rich life, two things which never came to pass because Evening’s father bugged out the moment Glorianna got pregnant.

Evening looks at her sister, who is two years Standard and toddling anywhere she can go. It’s up to Evening to provide for Mama, because her home planet is _stupid._

Evening can’t get a job yet, but now that she knows exactly what the score is, she’s going to do something about it. An unmanned junkyard is full of scrap metal; she gets it smelted in exchange for credits. Glass bottles litter the alleyways; Evening turns them in for a pittance, but even pittances add up.

She uses the small credit horde to supplement their food. Mama smiles but says nothing, and Sunset garbles toddler-speak and hugs Evening every time her sister brings her a special treat.

That isn’t all, though. She’s actually saving some of the money. Mama hasn’t had a birthday present in ten years, and Evening thinks that’s long enough to go without.

That dress. That fucking dress.

If she’d known what it would bring, Evening would have bought Mama something else. Flowers. A pretty ring. A special meal, brought home in a restaurant take-out carton so Mama could eat the expensive food without getting in trouble.

Instead, she gets Mama a cream-colored dress with pretty blue embroidery. Glorianna Kohvec is so proud of the dress that she wears it to market, and that’s how they meet Stimpson Grant.

Stimpson is smitten. He buys Mama treats, which Evening is okay with, but he also brings things to their home that are ludicrous. A flatscreen for watching the HoloNet is great, except they barely get enough electricity to run the lights, and they don’t have a feed, anyway.

Evening thinks Stimpson is thoughtless, but Mama is just as smitten as he is. It’s not much of a surprise when they get married after Evening’s tenth birthday. The ceremony makes Evening’s mother a legal citizen, so she can live like a normal Bastion native.

At first, Evening likes living in Stimpson’s big house. It’s clean and nice, like the homes her friends have. She and Sunset have their own rooms. Sunset’s is close to Mama and Stimpson’s room, but Eve’s bedroom is at the end of the long hall. She doesn’t mind. She’s never had privacy before, and she’s old enough to start wanting it.

Evening has just relaxed, just started to like the new house and maybe tolerate Stimpson, when he comes into her bedroom and shuts the door. She isn’t nervous until she hears the lock click, loud and final.

He rapes her while crooning about his love for the evening sky and the fiery setting sun.

She doesn’t let anyone call her Evening, not after that. She is just Eve. There is no Evening, no Fire, no sunset, thank you very much. The sound of her full name is enough to make her sick up.

The worst part is that Mama doesn’t believe her.

Mama calls her jealous. Mama says that she’s making it up for attention. Mama refuses to hear any more about ‘Dear Stimpson’ doing anything bad to Eve at all.

Fine. Eve puts on her best dress and goes to go tell someone at school, just like she’s been taught.

She learns that her citizenship, her paper vouchers, her free schooling—none of it matters. She is no longer poor in the eyes of the law, but the stigma of growing up in a hovel just shy of the spaceport brands her.

She is gutter trash. She is the lowest of the low. She is a child whore. She deserved it. She should count her blessings.

Eve Kohvec grows up very, very quickly.

She returns to collecting glass bottles and scrap metal. She is, indeed, counting her blessings, hiding the hard-earned credits in a toy box in her room. It was a gift from Stimpson, something childish that he never touches.

Every time her step-father comes into her bedroom and locks the door, Eve screams until the walls echo with it. Her mother is going to listen to her child whore suffer, whether she likes it or not. Each time, when it’s over and Stimpson is finally gone, Eve uses a stylus to put a small mark on the wall behind her bed.

When she is twelve, and there are fifty marks on the wall, she finally has enough credits saved to buy a small holdout blaster. Eve grew up near the spaceport, so she understands the basics of blaster-firing. She knows how many times she can shoot before the tiny powerpack gives out.

There is no fifty-first tally.

When he enters her room that night, Eve turns on her lamp and levels the blaster at him. Stimpson laughs until she demonstrates that the blaster works very well. She always hated that stuffed toy, anyway.

“You will not ever fucking touch me again,” Eve tells him. Her voice is very cold, and very steady, and she knows that she can kill him and feel absolutely no remorse…but she won’t unless she has to. All Sunset knows of this mess is that Stimpson is Daddy. Eve won’t take that away from her sister, not yet.

Stimpson backs down and leaves. Eve gets up and locks her door by throwing the extra bolt, the one she never uses in case Sunset needs her. She puts the blaster under her pillow, and then she sits up in bed, shaking and crying, for half the night. She wants to go home, back to the hovel and its shitty electrical system and no HoloNet and substandard plumbing. She’d rather have sandy floors and a near-penniless existence than…than…_this!_

After that, her step-father doesn’t talk to her unless he has to, and he is always scrupulously polite. It’s a front; he tries to catch her off-guard twice more before the sharp nudge of blaster barrel to the groin convinces him it is not a good idea.

“You know, if I shoot it off, no surgeon in this entire quadrant will be able to sew it back on,” Eve tells him sweetly.

After that, it’s legit. He doesn’t come back into her room.

Eve’s mother doesn’t understand why Eve refuses to acknowledge Glorianna’s existence. She talks sweetly. Then she yells. Then she slaps Eve hard across the face, accuses Eve of trying to wreck her marriage.

Eve doesn’t know who this bitch is that replaced her loving mother, but she’s really tired of her. She waits until her parents are away and uses the key to open their bedroom door, a key that Eve isn’t supposed to even know about, but Stimpson has servants. The housekeeper not only likes Eve, she doesn’t know when to shut up.

Eve puts disposable covers onto her feet, covers her hair, and slips on a pair of plastine gloves. Then she cleans the bedroom of every scrap of jewelry, both his and her mother’s, bundling it all up in a cloth bag. She tucks the bag into her snug undertunic, throws a big baggy shirt on over it so the bulge is invisible, and goes outside. She could have just walked out of the house with the jewelry cradled in her arms, for all the attention anyone pays her.

She has a metal box hidden in the toolshed. She puts the stolen jewelry inside it, and then buries the box in a dirt corner of the toolshed floor. A few buckets and abandoned gardening supplies disguise the disturbed earth.

She wraps a rock in the cloth bag and uses it like a well-muffled hammer to break the window into her parents’ bedroom, follows that up by using a rake to destroy the evidence of her steps. The rock she tosses away to join a like pile of stones. The bag, the covers for her feet and hands, and the gloves, she burns and scatters the ash until it’s invisible among the leaves. She isn’t wearing shoes; she washes her socks along with a waiting load of laundry when she gets back in the house. The key she soaks in grease remover to cleanse it of prints, washes it, dries it, and hangs it back on its secret little peg without touching it again with her bare skin.

When her parents return home, it’s to find the bedroom door locked as they left it, but the room burglarized. The local constable comes out, hems and haws over the lack of evidence, and tells Stimpson to claim everything as an insurance loss. Stimpson is furious. It warms Eve’s heart to see his thwarted rage.

“Oh, Mama!” Sunset wails. “Your pretty necklaces!”

Eve says nothing. She never speaks to her parents, anyway.

When she’s fourteen, Eve has replaced the power pack on the tiny holdout blaster, which still lives under her pillow. She sells one of Glorianna’s disassembled necklaces to buy a full-size blaster. There was enough credit left over to pay for lessons from a retired smuggler at the port. Grizzled Jak tells her that Eve has a good eye and a steady hand, and shoots like a cold-hearted bitch. Eve takes it as a compliment.

After Sunset’s ninth birthday, Eve tells her about everything that Stimpson did to her. Their step-father hasn’t looked at Sunset in a way that makes Eve nervous, but she’ll be ten soon enough. She shows Sunset the hold-out blaster underneath her pillow, points out the marks on the wall that stop at fifty.

Sunset doesn’t wail. She doesn’t shout denials. She listens, and when it’s done, her eyes are brimming over with tears, and her lower lip is trembling. “Oh, Eve. I’m so sorry!”

Eve stares at Sunset and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Am _I_ okay?” Sunset blurts, and then wraps her arms around Eve in a tight hug. “You stupid bint! I’m supposed to be asking _you_ that!”

Eve hugs her back, feeling anxious and sad.

“Why didn’t you tell Mama?” Sunset asks, and Eve looks away to answer.

“I did.”

Sunset stares at her. Her expression is baffled until she realizes what that has to mean, and then she cries harder. Eve holds her, refusing to feel guilty. She’s just ended her little sister’s childhood, but by the _gods_, she will not let Sunset go through the hell that she did.

“I’m going to teach you how to care for and use a hold-out blaster, just like mine,” Eve tells Sunset after her sister dries her eyes and cleans her face. “You’re going to keep it under your pillow. Maybe he’ll never touch you. Maybe he’ll always be a good dad to you.” Eve thinks that it’s possible. Stimpson has always treated Sunset like the gold she’s named for.

“But if he ever does try to hurt you, you’re going to be able to stop him so he can’t. Okay?”

Sunset swallows and nods. “Okay,” she says in a little voice.

The hold-out blaster turns out to be cursed, just like that damned cream-colored dress. Later, Eve will decide that she has got to stop giving people things. It always turns out wrong.

In the meantime, her step-father’s corpse is lying on Sunset’s bedroom floor, the blaster wound in his chest still smoking. Eve peers at him; his eyes are full of shock from his sudden, unexpected death.

Like she once suspected, she feels no regret. Just relief.

“Eve!” Sunset cries. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to kill him, please, you have to—”

Eve knows what she has to do. She goes to Sunset, carefully pries the hold-out blaster out of Sunset’s hands, and hugs her while her sister sobs in terror and guilt. “Shh. He was going to hurt you.”

“I didn’t mean to!” Sunset howls. “I was trying to warn him, just like you did! I missed! I missed, Eve!”

_Balls,_ Eve thinks in a distant sort of way. She should have taken Sunset to see Jak. It would have been worth breaking and selling another bit of jewelry. “It’s my fault, not yours. I just thought you’d know how to aim, like I did. This is my mistake, sweetie.”

“But I killed him and he’s dead and it’s my fault—”

“No,” Eve shushes her, and pushes her sister back just enough so that Sunset can look up at her. “You didn’t kill him. I did.”

“But…” Sunset gulps. “No, you didn’t!”

“Yes, I did.” Eve gives Sunset a stern look when she tries to keep protesting. “Listen now, because I’m not going to repeat myself. I am the juvenile delinquent port-scum. You are the adopted, well-adjusted daughter of Stimpson Grant. I discovered Stimpson in your room with his trousers open, trying to hurt you, and I shot him. Then I ran away when I killed him. You didn’t do anything. You’ve never held a blaster in your life.”

“You’re going to _leave?_” Sunset whimpers, starting to cry again. Eve holds Sunset close, and her chest aches like it’s being squeezed. If this crying keeps up, she’s going to be sniffling, too, and that just ruins the cold-hearted bitch mystique.

“I’ll have to, sweetie,” Eve tells her. It’s just blind, stupid luck that Glorianna is visiting Stimpson’s sister on the other side of the city for the weekend. The servants are gone for the evening. She’ll have just enough leeway to get to port. Jak is a decent sort; he can probably get her a transport off-planet. “It won’t matter that I was defending you. It’ll be just like the rapes.”

“Th-that is complete _bullshit_,” Sunset insists in a burbly voice. Eve has to bite her lip to keep from laughing.

“Did you keep your blaster tucked inside your pillowcase, like I taught you?” Eve asks, hoping that at least one thing will go right tonight.

Sunset nods.

“Good. Strip the pillowcase from your bed,” Eve instructs. “Go to my room. Cram all of my underwear into it. Get my three support bras, the black ones that look like halter tops. Get my leather trousers from the closet, and the two thick-cloth trousers. Roll up the thick-cloth, but just carry my leather; I’ll need to wear them. Five of my snug tunics, two overtunics, and the winter coat that’s plastine-wrapped. And my boots,” she adds, thinking that barefoot is not a good way to leave home.

Sunset, with a clear assignment in mind, darts off to perform her task. Eve tucks the blaster into the waistband of her sleeping pants, grabs Stimpson’s feet, and turns the body so that he lies with his feet to the door. Then she carefully inspects the carpet, reshaping the pile with her fingertips so it doesn’t show signs of the twisting that would give the game away. Even if the synth fabric of the carpet picks up her prints or body oils, Eve’s not worried. She’s _supposed_ to have been a constant visitor in her sister’s room.

A trip over the carpet with Sunset’s clothing de-linter picks up any stray hairs and surface fabric that turning the body might have left. Eve frowns at the corpse, glad there’s no blood to worry about, but she doesn’t think anyone is going to be poking at Sunset’s story too hard. Eve earned a reputation at school for being uncooperative and rebellious, one that she cultivated like a delicate garden.

Exposing Stimpson’s limp genitalia for the world to see is the most unpleasant part of the process, and it brings back bad memories. “I should have shot it off anyway,” she grumbles at her step-father.

Eve adds the de-linter to her short list of things to dispose of. The pillowcase, with its telltale scent of blaster, will be going with her. The slick plastine pillow protector will show no evidence, and isn’t a concern. She puts a fresh cover on the pillow, bends close, and can’t smell metal, grease, or the faint hint of ozone the power packs always exude.

When Sunset comes back, panting and wide-eyed, only ten minutes have passed. “I’ve got it!” her sister gasps, holding up the overstuffed pillowcase. “And socks, too. I thought you might want socks.”

“Good idea.” Eve sacrifices another minute to change clothes, slipping into her leather trousers, tight tunic, coat, socks, and boots. “Now. I want you to go call for help.”

“_Now_?” Sunset is horrified. “But they’ll catch you!”

“They will not,” Eve retorts. “It takes them almost five minutes to roll out a constable on a good day, and another ten to get up the hill to the house even if there’s no traffic in the way. It’s Field Day, Sunset. They won’t be able to get here for twenty, at least, but you need to be out of breath and panicked when you call.”

“I _am_ panicked and out of breath!” Sunset yells. Her hair is starting to stick to her face, adding to the image Eve is creating for law enforcement benefit. “You can’t just leave without saying goodbye!”

“I am saying it, Sunset Gold. Right now,” Eve says, and holds out her arms.

Sunset sobs and runs into her embrace. Eve gives up another minute to this, even though every second is now precious. “You and your mother are going to be fine. Let her mourn, be a good daughter, and never breathe a word of blaster lessons to anyone. I’ll keep an eye on you; when you’re legal, I’ll send you a message and we can get you the fuck off of this stupid planet.”

Sunset’s laughter sounds forced and unhappy. “You promise now. You promise you won’t get caught, that you’ll be safe.”

“Done and done,” Eve says. She will not be caught. She’s not going to be anyone’s victim ever again. “I love you, baby girl.”

“I love you, too,” Sunset replies.

“Now, go tell everyone that I shot your father,” Eve instructs, and Sunset, with another unhappy nod, rushes off to the comm station. Eve goes into her bedroom just long enough to collect her own brand new hold-out blaster, full size blaster, both holsters, a small pile of credits, and, after a moment’s reflection, a flatpic of Sunset that was taken a few months ago.

Outside, Eve digs up the metal box in the shed. Its contents are padded not to rattle, so now she starts running, the box in one hand and the overloaded pillowcase in the other. She ignores the roads and goes straight down the hill and across the field as the birds would fly, and is already back in the city when the first sirens cut through the night.

_Ten minute rollout? They must be busy tonight_, Eve thinks, grateful for the favor.

When she hits port, she finds someone that’s the right size and trades her expensive winter coat for a beaten leather jacket that is, despite its age, clean and soft. She buys a real travel bag from a vendor who ignores Bastion law on a regular basis, paying with one of the credits from her bedroom.

“Turn that over fast,” she tells the vendor. He nods, used to that kind of advice.

Jak just looks at her when Eve shows up at his door, almost like he expected to see her sooner. “What’d you go and do now, girl?”

“Shot a child-raping son of a bitch,” Eve says, because she might as well fully claim the tale. It certainly won’t hurt her reputation. “I need to bug out, Jak. Can you help me?”

Jak smiles. “Course I will,” he says. “How’s CorSec space sound to ya?”

“Like a corporate shithole, Jak,” Eve replies.

“Yeah, it is that,” Jak agrees, bolting the door and activating the alarm after inviting her inside. “But CorSec doesn’t obey any law but their own, or what decrees the Republic itself hands down, and sometimes not even that. You won’t have to worry about warrants from Bastion unless someone sics a bounty hunter on you.”

Eve wonders if her mother would pay a bounty hunter to find and kill her own child. It doesn’t sound all that far-fetched, really. At least bounty hunters are scarce on Bastion. “Okay, send me to the shithole. When’s flight time, and who do I have to blow to earn passage?”

Jak snorts. “Classy, girl. You save that offer for when you really need it, you hear? You don’t want to be taken advantage of, and you’re about to head out into a big galaxy that don’t know the meaning of sympathy.”

“Sympathy is for the weak,” Eve says.

He nods. “Sometimes. Come on, then. I was due for a nice vacation, anyway.”

To her surprise, Jak flies her out himself on a decent-sized freighter she had no idea he still owned. The old smuggler takes her to port on Corellia and helps her turn some of the stolen jewelry into Republic credits.

“Hide it, save it, get yourself a bank account,” Jak advises. “Always keep some credits on you. Never know when you’ll need it, but don’t keep _all_ your money in one place. That’s asking for as much trouble and then some.”

“What about the Muuns?” Eve asks. That’s the most neutral financing system she knows.

Jak makes a face and spits. “They’re neutral, but they’re greedy. Try the Mid-Rim trade unions. Accessible in a lot of places, and while they’re technically Republic-controlled, they don’t share business details unless Judicial forces a warrant down their throats.”

He helps her get a new identification card. Eve happily shreds the old one, which still bore her hated full name. She is now Eve Koh, born on Krnay, the blandest Mid-Rim world in a sea of uninteresting worlds. She gets a new birthdate and is magically seventeen Standard, of legal age on most worlds unless she goes Inner Rim. It’s a difference of a year and six months, but Eve has always looked a bit older than she really is. No one’s going to blink twice at the new I.D.

Jak buys her a drink, her very first, in a quiet bar in a run-down area of the city. “Pick whatever you want,” he says.

Eve is staring at the selection, wondering where to start, when the bartender serves something that is a beautiful lavender color and also happens to be on fire. “That,” she says with a grin.

Jak laughs; the bartender teaches her how to drink her very first Nar Shaddaan Flameout. It tastes a lot like it looks, smooth and sweet, with a back burn that kicks like the flames on top.

When the drink is gone, she feels warm and tingly. Then the full impact of the last few days hits like a cloth-wrapped rock. Eve puts her face in her hands and cries.

“Fucking asshole!” she rants between sobs. “Stupid son of a bitch!”

Jak lights up a tabacc stick, pats her back, and lets her cry. “It’ll be all right, kiddo.”

“Bad breakup?” the Corellian bartender asks.

“Dead rapist,” Jak says.

The bartender only nods in response, but he gives Eve another Flameout on the house.

* * * *

It’s dumb luck more than anything else when she ends up working for Vilmahr Grahrk. She’s done a few basic jobs on Jak’s recommendation, running security during smuggling drop-offs and pick-ups. Her first time out, she shot an asshole who tried to make off with a crate of black market weapons without paying for them first. That nets her the second job, and a reputation for ruthless enforcement. Eve welcomes both; she’s still underage, even if she doesn’t look it. She will use every weapon she can to survive, but she doesn’t just mean to survive.

She means to _thrive_.

Vilmahr Grahrk and his Second, Jones, show up to offload spice in exchange for a nice pad of credit, and…well, whatever the Hutt is trading for. Eve has already heard the name—Grahrk has a reputation for ruthlessness, too.

Eve watches him, when she is not keeping an eye out for trouble. He has a wide smile that reveals sharp white teeth, and a boisterous laugh that seems entirely at odds with his reputation. Grahrk definitely enjoys what he does, which is a nice change. Eve’s current boss, Huugun, is a _dour_ fuck.

Eve knows with one glance that Jones is nasty trouble, but he does everything that Grahrk asks of him without complaint. That makes him well-leashed, less dangerous than he otherwise might be, so she tolerates him instead of putting a blaster bolt through his skull.

Huugun’s crew settles in for the night. Eve takes first watch, perched on the crates that make up Huugun’s interests. Jones is doing the same for Grahrk, and a pair of short, squat humanoids stand guard for Thulla the Hutt’s part of the exchange.

Eve finds her eyes drawn to the pair more and more as her shift progresses. She may be new, but she grew up in the armpit of a spaceport, and their behavior is pinging all of her nerves.

She’s not the only one. Jones creeps up in the dark and takes a seat on the crate next to hers. He’s got a blaster in his hand, idly cleaning it with a rag. Eve notes that the safety’s off, and the power pack is at full charge.

“You think they’re trouble?” Jones says in an undertone, without looking or gesturing in their direction.

“I think they’re out to fuck us over,” Eve murmurs back.

Jones grunts. Out loud, he says, “I’m gonna have a smoke, see if there’s food prepped. Back in five, Koh.”

She glances down before he hops off the crate. His hand is clenched in a fist but for two fingers. “Take your time. It’s not like I can’t do your job and mine, too.”

“Fuck you, girl,” Jones retorts.

Eve gives him a sweet smile. “You’ll never fuck anything else again in your life if you try.”

Jones probably meant that he was going to be back in two minutes, not five—or perhaps he meant he would return with two reinforcements. The squat security team for the Hutt doesn’t bother waiting a minute beyond Jones’ departure before they make their move.

Eve rolls her eyes and shoots them both before they can get a line of sight on her. Amateurs.

Huugun is in a minor panic, but fortune is with her, maybe trying to make up for her shitty childhood. Thulla the Hutt is incensed, but not with Eve; evidence turns up that reveals the squat humanoids planned to betray them all, Hutt included.

The big female worm gives Eve a speculative look. “You saved me the bother of executing the idiots,” Thulla says. “If you join my organization, I will pay you well.”

Eve is on the verge of considering it when Huugun interrupts. “Hold on, now,” the burly smuggler protests. “She’s one of mine.”

“Fuck that,” Grahrk joins in. “Someone who doesn’t need to be told how to deal with problems, and shoots like that? Kid, come join us,” he says, which is how Eve Koh finds herself as the focus of a bidding war between three rival smuggling groups.

Huugun drops out first, not wanting to invest that much money into a hired gun. Grahrk and Thulla are rabid about the process, each of them trying to out-offer the other to get Eve’s attention. Eve’s eyebrows are climbing despite herself as they snap percentages over her head. If this keeps up, she’ll be able to retrieve her sister in less than six months, no matter if Sunset is legal or not. Money means a hell of a lot more on Bastion than good sense.

Finally, Grahrk says, “Kid, I know talent when I see it, and I think maybe you do, too. You get fifteen percent above the standard split for each take, and I’ll make you my Third.”

Eve stares at him. Jak was damned informative about smuggling life. It’s a good deal, one she didn’t expect to see until she was at least a few years into the business. “I wouldn’t have to sleep with you for that, right?”

Grahrk blinks and looks taken aback. “Well, no. Not unless you want to. I mean, I wouldn’t say no, but it’s not a fuckin’ prerequisite.”

Thulla rumbles a laugh. “Go with the Devaronian, Eve Koh. You are talented, but I would not promote you to such a position without further evidence of your talents.”

“I’m a Devorian,” Grahrk says with a scowl. “You see a woman bossing me around, Thulla?”

Thulla laughs again and points at Eve. “I’m about to see one do so, Grahrk.”

* * * *

Eve gets used to the new group, and to her surprise, she even likes most of them. (Not Jones.) Grahrk runs a big freighter with a crew of five after Eve’s addition, though he’s still on the lookout for two more. She thinks he’s running a small operation until Grahrk sits her down and shows her the specs on the six other vessels that he commands, with a crew of six to ten able bodies per ship.

“Little bit more than you expected, huh?” Grahrk asks with a grin.

Eve refuses to look impressed. “A bit,” she says, and then offers suggestions that has Grahrk drop the teasing grin and listen in complete seriousness. There is a reason that Jak pushed her to join the smuggling groups, and it didn’t have a damned thing to do with her blaster skills. That part is just a bonus.

Seven vessels and Grahrk’s extensive network of contacts make his smuggling group one of the most successful in the Expansion Region. By the time she actually turns sixteen, Eve has enough money that she no longer worries about hoarding Stimpson and Glorianna’s old jewelry. It’s a relief to sell the rest of it, putting it into the hands of a Jawa who gives her fair market value. She estimated wrong; six months won’t be long enough to pay the bribes on Bastion, but a year might be.

Sunset loved her no matter how awful her reputation on Bastion got. Eve still worries about how Sunset will adjust to a smuggler’s life.

Vilmahr —Villie—keeps his word. He’s truly not interested in sleeping with anyone who isn’t willing. Jones would be another story, but he seems to have taken her first warning seriously, and never tries.

In fact, none of the crew tries to hurt her, even though she’s the only girl. She finally manages to get Villie’s cousin, Olmar, to explain things.

“Sister was raped,” Olmar says bluntly. The Devorian is a giant brute, a match in size for the old Wookiee, Grrranth, who does most of their fabrication work. “Me an’ Villie, we were the younger kids. Had to watch.”

“I’m really sorry,” Eve says, and means it.

Olmar shrugs. “Long time ago. Villie, he lays down the law about rape.” He turns away from the repair work he’s doing on the weapons circuit for the lower guns, peering down at her. “How old were you, Koh?”

Eve narrows her eyes. “Ten. Step-father.”

Olmar gives her a surprisingly gentle pat on the shoulder. “Worse when it’s family. He’s dead?”

“Very.”

Olmar nods. “I’ll tell you this: don’t let it ruin you, not ’less you have no taste for it anyway. Find someone nice and learn what it’s supposed to be like.”

She realizes what he’s telling her, and that makes Eve appreciate the advice all the more. “You, too, huh?”

Olmar smiles. “Like I said, we were the younger kids,” he says, and turns back to his work.

It’s not easy to put Olmar’s suggestion to use. Bastion’s sexual education classes were pathetic, and Eve hadn’t been interested in pursuing the matter. Hell, thanks to Stimpson’s close watch, she hasn’t even had a proper medical exam. Eve decides that should be her first step.

A clinic on Mayvitch 7 accepts humanoids, so on their next layover, that’s where Eve goes. She ends up in a little room with a table that looks prepped to commit atrocities. She sits on a chair instead, eying the cloth gown that’s folded up and neatly waiting.

She’s drenched in sweat after the first five minutes have crawled by. This is a _terrible_ idea.

Eve has almost decided to skip the stupid exam and bolt when a wizened old human woman enters the room and shuts the door. She’s smaller than Eve, which makes her pretty damned short. She’s all wrinkles and white hair, but the old woman still looks like she’s made out of durasteel.

“I’m Dianni,” the medic says, holding out her hand. Eve shakes it on reflex; the medic has a firm grip, and her hands are warm and dry. It makes her seem less terrifying.

“Eve Koh.”

“This is a very incomplete medical history, Eve Koh,” Dianni says, holding up the flimsiplast sheet that Eve had been told to fill out.

“Uhm…I didn’t know how to fill out most of it.” Eve cringes under the medic’s stare. “At least I’ve had all of my inoculations?”

“Thank the Force for small favors, then,” the medic says, sitting down on the other chair to regard Eve curiously. “Tell me why you’re here, Eve Koh.”

“Because I’ve never had a medical exam of…uh…this sort,” Eve says, and hates that she blushes. “I figured I should.”

Dianni is still staring at her. “You’re not eighteen Standard.”

Eve bristles. “Why does that matter—”

“Oh, by the Seven Graces.” Dianni shakes her head. Her expression has become something that Eve thinks might be sympathy. “You’re my third prepubescent rape victim this week alone.”

Eve stands bolt upright. “How the _fuck_ do you know that?” she hisses.

Dianni doesn’t even blink. If anything, the sympathetic look gets more obvious. “I’m sorry. I tend to be blunt. Now, I must ask: are you still being raped, Eve Koh?”

The matter-of-fact tone of voice is what makes Eve sink back down on the chair. The medic’s not judging her, same as Villie’s crew. “No. Not since I was twelve.”

“How old were you when it started?”

Eve bites her tongue, but answers the medic. “Ten.”

Dianni’s eyes narrow. “Was the perpetrator male, female, or otherwise gendered?”

“Male. Step-father.”

“Did any pregnancies result?” Dianni asks. “Hmm. I’ll take that as a ‘No,”’ she continues in response to Eve’s horrified realization of how much worse it could have been. “Any birth control?”

Eve shakes her head. _Pregnancies._ Oh, fuck. Maybe she should find religion so she has a deity to thank.

“And where can I find this putrid excuse for a sentient being?”

“Uhm.” Eve blinks at the medic. “What?”

Dianni sighs. “You’ve no idea who I am, do you?” When Eve shakes her head again, Dianni says, “I’m the Jedi Watchman for this sector, Eve Koh.”

Eve feels the blood drain from her face. “Am I under arrest?” The words come out in a strangled whisper.

Dianni is grimly amused by the question. “I’m not in the habit of arresting underage rape victims who are just trying to get medical assistance, child.”

Eve swallows. “Then why are you…you know—why are you doing this?”

“Mayvitch 7 suffers from a shortage of decent medical droids, healers, medics, supplies…” Dianni lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “You name it, we’re desperate for it. I have a gift for healing, so I help when my duties allow. When I am in this clinic, I am a Healer, but when I leave? I can go out and arrest a child-raping Sith-spawn. It eases my conscience a bit.”

“You’d need a shovel to deal with my step-father,” Eve says. There is something in the old Jedi’s eyes that speak of trust. She _wants_ to trust someone with this. She’s carrying all of her rage, all of her hope, in a tangled knot in her chest. The old Jedi better not be mind-tricking her into compliance.

“I didn’t kill him,” Eve says when Dianni raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “I wish I had.”

“What happened?”

Eve swallows. “He went after my baby sister. I gave her a blaster, just in case he ever tried to hurt her, and she shot him.”

Eve is startled when the medic pats her knee. “You told everyone that you did it, and then you bugged out. Poor dear,” Dianni murmurs. “How is your sister? Safe?”

“I don’t know,” Eve whispers, and burst into tears. She is then hugged and comforted by a one-hundred-twenty-year-old Jedi Healer, who gives her tea and sweet baked goods from a cabinet. Dianni is the first person outside of Jak who tells her that it will be okay.

When Eve regains her self-control, the conversation turns back to the actual purpose of Eve’s visit. She knows she missed out on a decent education, but the sheer amount of shit that Eve needs to know about sex is _astounding._ Dianni gives Eve a reader that is loaded with humanoid sexuality: diagrams and information, biology and compatibility, genders and types of attraction, birth control options and possible side-effects, things to know about early pregnancy signs in case the barriers and the birth control fail. It seems to go on and on. It’ll take days to review it all.

The physical exam is the worst part, even though Dianni is gentle. It’s the thoroughness that makes Eve twitch. She scrunches up her face and closes her eyes, worried about panicking and kicking the medic in the face.

“Pfft, you wouldn’t be the first. Most of the time it’s because it’s a birth, mind,” Dianni says in response, even though Eve hasn’t said anything.

_Fucking telepaths,_ Eve thinks with a scowl, and Dianni chuckles.

When it’s over, Dianni asks Eve how often she masturbates.

Eve didn’t know it was possible to have a full-body blush.

“I know you were thinking about having sex sometime in your near future,” Dianni says, almost as stern as she was at the beginning of the appointment. “Well, before you let someone else touch you, you need to be comfortable with the idea of touching yourself. It’ll be a lot easier to get past some of the big psychological hurdles you’re going to have with a partner if you already know what you like and don’t like.”

Eve must have been thinking loudly again, or maybe it was the expression on her face, because Dianni smiles at her. “I am old, Eve Koh, not dead.”

She comes out of the appointment, three hours later than she’d planned, with a five-year implant under her skin for birth control and hormone regulation. The information, the birth control, the knowledge that Stimpson didn’t give her a damned sexually transmitted infection—all of that pales in comparison to the final thing the Jedi offers.

“I’ll make some inquiries and see about finding you some updated information about your sister,” Dianni promises. “When I know something, I’ll send it along.”

Then, of course, Dianni makes Eve’s heart hammer with terror when she says, “If you insist on keeping company with those smugglers, then you listen well, girl.”

Eve gulps and nods. Yes, she is _definitely listening._

“Be good to each other, and watch each other’s backs. Honor your contracts. Don’t shoot anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Don’t take a job that’ll only bring ill to others. Trust your instincts. If things seem bad, they probably are.”

Eve manages to nod again. It’s surprisingly good advice, and not quite what she’d imagined hearing from a Jedi.

Dianni looks pleased. “You’ve got a decent set of morals. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t lose sight of the Light; don’t forget the true meaning of right and wrong. I don’t want to find you on the wrong end of my lightsaber one day.”

“What about Judicial?” Eve asks, curious.

“It’s Judicial’s job to worry about the letter of the law. I don’t give a damn about legal nonsense as long as your intentions and your actions are good. Or at least tolerable,” Dianni amends.

“Tolerable?” Eve repeats.

“I’m old. My standards are probably lacking,” Dianni says, which makes Eve smile.

* * * *

Masturbation is a lot more fun than she thought it would be, especially when she gets over the embarrassment of buying lubricant—or slick, as it’s sometimes called. Everything down below seems to work all right, but she’s so nervous at first that her physiology has no interest in producing lube of its own. She also goes through a months-long span of thinking that it’s all entirely goopy and wet and gross, but orgasms might be worth the mess.

What makes it easier is that there is none of that horrific stink that she remembers from childhood. Stimpson’s presence had created the hated smell. From what she’s read, it’s not because he was male, but probably a sign of ill health.

_Looks like Sunset and I did you a favor after all, Mother,_ Eve thinks bitterly.

In the meantime, smuggling life continues. They make drops and pick up shipments. Grrranth the Wookiee and Olmar take turns looking threatening. When they’re double-crossed—which happens so often as to be ludicrous—the idiots are so busy paying attention to the big, scary males that they never see Eve’s blaster at all.

“Okay, this is stupid,” Eve tells Villie one evening while the rest of the crew mop up the blood and the bodies. That’s another rival smuggling faction dealt with, small-timers who thought it was all about shooting your way into prominence.

“What’s stupid?” Villie is bandaging Olmar’s split knuckles with hardening plast.

“You may know talent when you see it, but you sure as hell can’t pick decent customers. How many people did you have to shoot to build up the contact list you’ve got?” Eve asks.

“Not that many,” Villie says, defensive.

“He means lots,” Olmar corrects, amused. “You got any ideas, girl?”

“Yeah. Let me vet the damn clients. It’s supposed to be my job.”

“It’s supposed to be Jones’s job,” Villie protests.

“Not my fuckin’ job!” Jones shouts as he hauls away a Clawdite corpse. They’ve got tabs on a walk-in freezer. Local law enforcement ignores their shenanigans as long as they clean up the mess and leave the bodies for relatives to claim.

“Let Eve vet the clients so we can make more money, cousin,” Olmar says. “You like people too much, even the ones who want to shoot you.”

“Not everyone wants to shoot me,” Villie mutters, sulking.

Eve and Olmar exchange grins. “Even I want to shoot you,” Jones says as he comes back inside.

“You want to shoot everyone,” Villie retorts. “Fine. You vet our next new contact, and when it all ends in tears and we’ve shot another group of assholes, we’ll do it my way.”

Eve doesn’t just vet the next new contact, though. She stares at the blond-haired twins—a man and a woman—Elias and Pel. They’re about ten years older than Eve, and there is a hardened grit to them that catches her eye almost at once.

They’re also either _really_ close, or sleeping together. Eve shrugs that off; not her place to judge. When the deal is done, with no shooting necessary, she tells Villie to hire them. The twins round out the _Outcast’s_ crew nicely.

* * * *

Eve gets a message from Dianni when she’s two months shy of being seventeen for real, and _legal_ for real unless she suddenly has a mad desire to live on a Core World. Villie’s people know her real age, and none of them give a damn because she shoots better than all of them combined. It’s nice to have that kind of trust.

_Dearheart,_

_Your sister is in good health, and doing very well in school. She is spoken of as a bright, intuitive child by all her instructors. She must also be lonely, given how quickly she agreed to exchange messages with an aging Jedi. _

_There is still a warrant for your arrest on Bastion, but it isn’t being actively pursued. It seems as if your step-father made enemies with the local constables and Judicial representatives._

Eve folds up the flimsiplast copy of Dianni’s message and places it in her lock-box. Two more months. She knows she’ll have the money a few weeks after she turns seventeen. Then she can collect Sunset, and the two of them can tell all of Bastion to get fucked.

She also has another issue. Now that she’s more comfortable in her own skin, her hormones are acting up. Her entire_ ass_ that implant is supposed to regulate her hormones; she feels a constant desire to lick half of the humanoid males she sees.

Eve doesn’t want a relationship, though. She doesn’t need to hear it from a Jedi to know that she’s not ready for any emotional bullshit to go along with the biological part. The problem is finding someone she trusts not to try to rob her blind—or do worse things—if she crawls into bed with them.

Villie’s other crews don’t have anyone she prefers. Olmar is like her very, very large older brother. Grrranth is her friend, but he’s also completely incompatible. Elias and Pel are kind of terrifying, and Eve still hasn’t figured out if they’re just close siblings, or if it’s a sibling-with-benefits kind of deal. Jones is out of the question…which leaves Villie.

“Do you want to have a romantic relationship with anyone?” she asks him bluntly one evening.

Vilmahr blinks at her, startled. “Uh—no? Is this a trick question?”

Eve purses her lips. “No, asshole, it isn’t a trick question.”

“Huh. Then no, probably never,” he replies, grinning. “Sex is great, but relationships? That’s complicated shit, Eve. Why?”

Eve hardens herself, putting all the steel of her smuggling position into her voice. “Because I don’t want a relationship, either, but I need to sleep with someone before hormones melt my fucking brain. I trust that you won’t hurt me, because if you do? I’ll fucking kill you.”

Vilmahr frowns. “Sex only? Not a relationship?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not that complicated, Villie.”

“Yes it is!” Vilmahr shouts. “I’ve had three different people try to use sex to sucker me into a relationship. Fuck that!”

When put that way, Eve can understand his paranoia. “I don’t want a relationship with you, Villie. I’m still not sure if I even _like_ you.”

Vilmahr calms down and laughs. “You’re sure? No silly romantic shit?”

Eve nods. “Just sex with lots and lots of birth control. I am not having your kid, and I never want to try to birth anything with horns.”

“We grow them _after_ birth, not before!” Vilmahr protests, and then he peers at her. “Are you sure, Eve? I don’t have a lot of rules and I’m a pathetic coward, but not about this. Not after—not after what happened to my family.”

Eve winces. “Olmar told me. I’m sorry.”

Vilmahr shrugs just like Olmar had. “It was a long time ago. This is also not sexy bedroom talk.”

Eve glares at him. “I don’t even know what sexy bedroom talk is like!”

“Oh!” Vilmahr looks startled again. “Okay. That I can fix. Now?”

“We’re in hyperspace for the next two days, Villie,” Eve returns dryly. “Can you think of anything else we’re supposed to be doing?”

“No. I guess not.” Vilmahr stands up and holds out his hand. “Okay. Sex.” Then he pauses again after he’s politely lifted Eve to her feet. “You’re not trying to get me to increase your profit percentage, are you?”

Eve shoves him. “No, stupid. I am _trying_ to get you to have sex with me so my body will shut up about penises!”

Vilmahr grins. “Trust me, Eve—that’s really not the way it works.”

* * * *

Eve sits naked at the foot of Vilmahr’s generously sized bed, her chin resting in her hand as she frowns at the wall. She’s taking stock, evaluating scent, feelings—why does sex have to be so _messy_?—and thinking that maybe it isn’t that bad at all. “Let’s do that again.”

Behind her, Vilmahr lets out a groan. “Eve Koh, you’re going to kill me.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Eve replies, turning her head to look at him. Vilmahr is stretched out on the rumpled sheets like a dying fish that’s too tired to flop anymore.

“I’ve come four times tonight, Eve,” Vilmahr gurgles. “Four!”

“Yes, but I’m not finished yet!” she retorts.

“This was a terrible mistake,” he mutters, but at least he’s smiling when he says it.

* * * *

Sleeping with Villie, and finally getting over that stupid hurdle her step-father created, is great. It also turns her into a huge flirt. She’s not really interested in pursuing anyone but Villie right now, but it’s fun. Men flirt back and Eve gets to drag their egos through the mire. Villie acts the part of the outraged boyfriend, every time, and it’s hilarious.

She didn’t expect anything about sex or flirting to be this enjoyable. If she’d known, she’d have jumped into Villie’s bed last year.

On her seventeenth birthday, Eve contacts Jak, who passes along the current bribe rates for getting anything done in Bastion’s shambling government. Eve thinks about what’s in her lockbox and her scattered accounts, smiles, and says that she’ll see him in a couple of weeks. There’s another smuggling job to do, and then she’s free and clear. She might also be broke again, but they won’t be homeless or starving. Olmar wants another baby sister, and Vilmahr put the fear of the gods into Jones about not touching Sunset. Vilmahr would settle for shooting Jones’s balls off, but Eve would make him _eat _them.

They’ve just finished that last job when Eve gets another message from Dianni. Even just in copied text, there is concern imprinted in every word.

Sunset hasn’t been responding to messages for the last few days. Dianni suggests Eve go to Bastion now, bribes be damned.

Eve swallows, her heart in her throat, her pulse so loud it’s echoing in her head. No. Please. Please, gods, stars, monsters, Force, whatever might exist and listen: please let her sister be all right.

Vilmahr and Olmar escort her to Bastion, playing the role of big, scary bodyguards. Nobody on Bastion needs to know that Eve is the one they need to be scared of, at least when it comes to getting shot.

Jak is introduced to the two Devorians, eying them the entire time as if he’s not quite sure what to do with them. Eve isn’t worried about anyone recognizing Villie or Olmar; they’re on the Outer Rim, not their usual stomping grounds in the Expansion Region.

“Thought you’d come alone, girl,” Jak finally says.

“I would have, but Sunset—she’s stopped responding to messages,” Eve tells him.

Jak scowls. “All right, then. Come with me.”

Jak takes them to a Health and Services agent he knows that’s willing to accept bribes in exchange for custody rights, especially if the kid’s in a dangerous situation. Jak makes a point of telling Eve that he spoke well of her. Tram is ready to sign Sunset over to Eve’s care, full and legal custody.

When they finally meet Tram an hour later, he looks puzzled. “I thought you’d already retrieved her.”

Eve frowns at him. “I wouldn’t be here again if I had. What are you talking about?”

Tram gets up from his desk, pulling on a coat before he opens a drawer and gets a folder out marked S. G. Kohvec. “Sunset Kohvec didn’t show up for school last week. Her name came across my desk for truancy. I already knew you were coming, thanks to Jak. I assumed you’d skipped the bribes and taken her.”

“And have Judicial gunning for my skin? No thanks,” Eve says automatically. She’s still stuck on Dianni’s concern. Sunset likes school, she wouldn’t… “Is she sick?”

“I don’t know,” Tram murmurs, escorting them out of his office so he can lock the door. “Let’s go find out.”

Tram picks up an off-duty constable along the way, telling Officer Pierrs that the eldest sister of Sunset Kohvec has been awarded legal custody.

Pierrs gives Eve an up-and-down appraisal. “Aren’t you the same Evening Kohvec we have an outstanding warrant for?”

“I didn’t shoot him.” Eve is trying not to grind her teeth or spit at the stupid fool. They need at least one constable to witness the custody transfer, and she can’t afford to alienate this one. “Besides, you assholes didn’t care when my step-father raped me when I was ten, and you didn’t care when he tried to rape my sister.” She knows; she checked the police reports for that night. “What the fuck do you care about who Sunset lives with?”

Pierrs shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “I don’t really handle assault cases.”

“Yeah, neither does anyone else,” Eve snaps back. “Can we go now?”

“But the fact of the matter is, it’s still a warrant for murder,” Pierrs tries again, but Tram cuts him off.

“You’re getting paid, regardless,” he says. “Please shut up so we can go. Jak, you coming?”

Jak’s hand is resting on the customized wooden grip of his blaster pistol. “Right behind you, Tram.”

The big house on the hill looks the same as when Eve left. The paint is bright and crisp. The garden is well-maintained. The servant who answers the door is perfectly polite, a new addition to the household.

The second servant is one Eve recognizes, but the woman won’t meet her eyes. Weird.

Tram orders that the lady of the house present herself and her daughter, per court orders. It isn’t long before Glorianna appears, but she’s alone. She sees Eve and a wide smile blooms across her face.

“Evening!” Glorianna cries, and rushes forward to embrace her. Eve takes three steps back and would have had to keep retreating, but Olmar steps forward to block Glorianna’s way.

“She doesn’t like to be touched,” Olmar says, staring down at Eve’s mother in disapproval.

Glorianna looks thwarted before her expression brightens again. “But I haven’t seen her in so long! Surely you can offer your mother a hug?”

Eve swallows down bile and nerves. Glorianna is acting flat-out bizarre. She looks to Tram, panicked.

Sunset’s not in the house. Eve is sure of it.

“Where is Sunset Gold Kohvec?” Tram asks—no, demands. The man knows how to use the authority of his office. Pierrs might as well be a tree stump for all the use he is right now.

Glorianna’s welcoming smile dissolves. “That little slut. I’ve gotten rid of her!”

Eve’s blood runs cold. There is a roaring in her ears; the bottom falls out of her stomach. “Y-you—you did what?”

“Oh, it was never you I should have been worried about,” Glorianna croons, walking towards Eve despite Olmar’s warning glare. “Sunset finally told me that she was the one who killed our Stimpson.”

Eve jerks her head back when Glorianna tries to touch her cheek. “_Your_ Stimpson,” she hisses. “What the fuck did you do to Sunset?”

“I sold her,” Glorianna says, “for shooting her father. No sensible child, no _loving_ child, would do such a thing.”

Eve just stares at Glorianna in utter disbelief. Her mother has lost her fucking mind.

“You—you sold your child,” Vilmahr sputters in outrage. Olmar just looks horrified. Jak’s expression has gone grim and cold.

Tram is white-faced with anger. “Am I correct in assuming that you sold your youngest daughter into slavery?”

Glorianna nods, like it’s normal—like what she’s done is _okay_. “Of course I did. I couldn’t just turn her over to the constables. What would _they_ do to avenge poor Stimpson?”

“Uh, Milady, er—ma’am.” Pierrs swallows. “Ma’am, slavery is illegal on Bastion.”

“Who did you sell her to?” Eve asks. She sounds calm. She can’t hear any of her rage in her voice.

“Oh, someone down in the port I knew of from the old days,” Glorianna says, dismissive. “They’re always looking for young girls to sell on the Rim.”

“I see,” Eve says. Her blaster is in her hand before she realizes she’s drawn the weapon.

Olmar puts his hand on Eve’s blaster and pushes it down. “No, girl.”

“Olmar, what the actual fuck—” Eve is ready to shriek, to scream.

“Matricide’s no good,” Olmar says with a sad, sympathetic shine in his eyes. “We’ll handle it. Right, Villie?”

Glorianna falls from Vilmahr’s single blaster shot, her chest a smoking ruin. Eve turns away from the sight. Maybe later, she’ll be upset, but she’s been an orphan for a long time now. All of her feelings are reserved for Sunset.

“Thanks.” Jak nods at Vilmahr. “If you hadn’t, I sure as hell was going to do it.”

“You gonna be a problem?” Vilmahr asks Pierrs, who looks like he might throw up.

Pierrs looks at Villie, glances down at Villie’s blaster, and shakes his head. “N—no. No, I won’t. I have kids of my own. I—uh—how should I report this?”

“We’re going to report that family arrived to claim custody of Sunset Gold Kohvec from her mentally unstable mother, only to arrive too late. You’re going to report what’s happened to that eleven-year-old girl.” Tram sighs. “Oh, gods. There isn’t enough alcohol in the galaxy for this. Don’t use names, Pierrs. Tell your boss that the family paid for the right to anonymity, especially in light of what’s happened.”

“I need—I need to go to her bedroom,” Eve says, holstering her blaster and heading for the stairs. “Maybe Glorianna mentioned something, maybe Sunset left a note…” She babbles as she walks, and by the time she’s halfway up the stairs, she’s running. Olmar follows, leaving Vilmahr and Jak to keep an eye on the gathering household staff.

Eve has enough presence of mind to wonder why none of the staff seem all that bothered about Glorianna’s death, and then she sees the bedroom.

Sunset’s room is empty. There is _nothing_ inside. No bed, no furniture, no clothes, no belongings. It’s a blank slate. Eve gulps hard, her stomach roiling, and then dashes down the hall to her own old bedroom. It’s the larger room; maybe Glorianna gave it to Sunset after Eve left—

That room is empty, too.

_We’re poor in funds, but not in love_. Eve remembers her mother saying those words as clearly as if Glorianna had just repeated them aloud. “Fuck,” she whispers, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Olmar wraps Eve in a hug. “We’ll find her.” Eve nods listlessly. “Let’s strip the house. All of this shit’s legally yours, anyway.”

Eve swallows and wipes her eyes. “Have Jak do it. He’ll know what I’ll want from here, and he’s good at bossing people around. We need to go back to the port.”

Olmar nods. “Okay. Lead the way, girl.”

They scour the port until they find the scum that bought Sunset. He’s human, a man Eve remembers Jak pointing out and telling her to avoid at all costs.

“I don’t have her,” Yllis mumbles, doing a pretty good job of acting shamed by his own profession. “Sold her and the last batch off to Skinny Tate yesterday.”

Olmar scowls and leans over Yllis until the man finally stops with the stupid act. “Where is Tate?”

“I don’t know,” Yllis spits, trying to shove Olmar back one-handed. It doesn’t work very well. “I told you I don’t have her, so go bother someone else.”

“You can have this one, Eve,” Vilmahr says. Eve wastes no time in killing the slaver scum.

It doesn’t make her feel any better. She’ll be happier about making Yllis dead once she has Sunset back.

Jak brings her a sealed box of sellable goods and a case of credits. Some of the money in the big house went to the servants, since they’d suddenly become unemployed, but there are plenty of credits left. If Eve has to buy her sister back from a scumsucking maggot slaver, she can afford it.

She says goodbye to Jak again. He hugs Eve and tells her to keep in touch. He’s got contacts of his own; he’ll be searching for Sunset, too.

Skinny Tate, by the time they catch up to her, has already sold Sunset’s group of girls to another buyer. They think so, anyway, since the woman’s home is empty of slaves or prisoners of any sort. Tate is also dead, a knife in her back and an unrepentant jilted girlfriend claiming the kill.

“Your timing is really fucking awful,” Vilmahr tells Flint. “I don’t suppose you know where that last batch of slaves went, do you?”

Flint is busy reclaiming her knife. “No, but Tatia kept ’plast records of her transactions in her office. Might be something in there. Leave the money though, will you? I’m going to need passage off this rock.”

“Help us search and we’ll give you a ride,” Villie offers, and Flint accepts.

The flimsiplast records give them the contact listing of a Hutt working under Jabba. Eve has a sour taste in her mouth as they go see the worm.

[I do not have a child younger than sixteen in my collection,] Big Gamma tells them in a relatively pleasant voice. [Tate used couriers. It is possible that the courier sold this child before delivering the slaves to me.]

Eve has her hand wrapped around her blaster grip, but she doesn’t draw the weapon. Not yet. “You’re telling me truthfully—and you’d damned well better not be lying—that you don’t have any young girls.”

Big Gamma sniffs a few times and regards her like she’s a bug he’s about to roll over. [Unlike my pervert of a cousin, I do not deal in child slaves for my brothels. They must be adults, or on the verge of adulthood.]

Eve takes a step back in disgust. “Which courier just came in from Skinny Tate?”

Big Gamma points at a wall. [That one.]

Eve turns and has to bite back a gasp. Someone has literally pinned a dead human to the wall, stretched out like they’re drying him on a preservation rack. “Oh, gods.”

Vilmahr regards the dead man thoughtfully. “What’d he do, Big Gamma?”

[He sold multiple slaves before his arrival, not just your employee’s child sister. The fool forgot to alter Tate’s manifest for the expected cargo. He was…dealt with.]

“Where’s the stupid fucker’s ship?” Olmar asks in a low growl.

[I rewarded it to the one who killed this foolish scum,] Big Gamma replies. [He was not in my employ, and he did not offer his name. He, and the ship, are long gone from here.]

“What kind of ship?” Eve asks in a dull voice. The answer is a common freighter, with no distinguishing markings. That type of craft is in use throughout the Republic.

The trail is gone—the trail is literally dead. Eve stares at the stretched-out corpse and wishes he were alive again, because she wants nothing more than to have been able to do the job of staking him out herself.

Vilmahr takes another look at the dead man and nods. “Understood. Thanks for the assistance, Big Gamma.”

[Don’t forget to offer me a lower fee on our next financial venture,] the Hutt rumbled. [I would hate for our pleasant business arrangement to sour.]

“Not a problem. Come on, guys,” Vilmahr says.

Eve has no idea how she walks out of Big Gamma’s den. She doesn’t remember the trip back to the spaceport, or boarding their ship.

She doesn’t remember punching Jones, either, and that’s a damned shame. She finds out later that she knocked out three of that utter bastard’s teeth.

“Can—can you guys take me to Mayvitch 7?” Eve asks once they’re back in space. “I need to go see someone.”

“Take a day or so,” Vilmahr says. “Pel, make it happen.”

Pel scowls, shakes her head, and starts programming the ship for the jump. “Ridiculous sentiment,” she mutters.

Things are starting to filter back in; she has her blaster at Pel’s temple before the other woman can move. “How about I make sure your brother has a close encounter with an airlock?” Eve growls. “Then we’ll see how ridiculous that sentiment really is, won’t we?”

Pel’s lips thin, but she glances up at Eve from the corner of her eye. “I…apologize,” she grates out.

“Good.” Eve tucks her blaster back into its holster. “Say anything like that again, and Elias is going to be left wondering why he’s lacking a sister.”

Olmar holds her for most of the flight. Eve doesn’t cry. She doesn’t scream. She just sits and lets Olmar croon over her. Big, gentle Olmar, who wouldn’t let her kill her mother. Vicious Villie, who did the job for her so she wouldn’t have to dream about it. Gods, she loves them both.

“We’ll keep searching,” both Vilmahr and Olmar tell her. “We look after our own, girl,” they say, and Eve believes them. She believes them, but it’s so much harder to hope.

When the ship touches down on Mayvitch 7, Eve disembarks and puts on a coat against the winter chill. “Back in a few hours,” she says absently, but Vilmahr is already off, sniffing out business, and Olmar is busy breaking Jones’s arm for some reason.

Dianni sees her at once in her private residence, not the clinic. “Eve? Dear, what is—”

It must be on Eve’s face, or maybe it’s the telepathy Force shit. Either way, Dianni doesn’t say anything else. She simply pulls Eve into her arms.

Eve can’t remember the last time someone held her this way. It’s like the way her mother—

That’s when she bursts into harsh, choking sobs.

Republic Date 5197: 2/19th

Judicial Offices and Central Command, Coruscant

Eve watches the Judicial officer enter the room, file folder in hand. The older woman sits down across from Eve before placing the folder down on the table, opening it. Eve’s eyes flicker down long enough to see a picture of herself when she was thirteen, taken by her school, before she looks back up.

She hasn’t been cuffed or restrained in any way, but this is a Judicial interrogation room. Eve isn’t stupid enough to believe she’s walking away from this, not unless it’s straight into a prison cell. Maybe she helped Ben against the Yinchorri rebels, but she’s been a smuggler since age fifteen. Judicial probably has enough in that stupid file to put her away for years.

Eve tries not to wonder what’s happening to Olmar, or to Thol Heeniir. Are they sitting in their own interrogation rooms? Olmar hadn’t assisted the Jedi, but he hadn’t fought against them, either. She doesn’t know Heeniir well enough to know how thick his Judicial folder might be.

Then again, Heeniir worked for Vilmahr Grahrk, too. They’re probably all fucked.

The Judicial officer has finished her drawn-out show of settling herself. Now the steel-haired humanoid pins Eve with a hazel stare. “Evening Fire Kohvec.”

Eve narrows her eyes. “Eve Koh,” she corrects, her voice like frost.

“Do you deny that you are Evening Fire Kohvec of Bastion?” the officer asks.

“Don’t be an idiot, and don’t treat me like I’m fucking stupid,” Eve snaps back. “You have my photo, and you know that used to be my name. If you’ve done your damned homework, then you also know why I won’t fucking answer to it!” She’s shouting by that point, and it takes effort to bite it back and try to calm down.

Siding with Ben had seemed so much simpler when Villie turned traitor and abandoned them all. She’s such an idiot for trusting that the Jedi would make certain she and Thol Heeniir would be okay.

“Right to the point them, hmm?” To Eve’s surprise, the officer smiles. “I’m Lieutenant Wash,” she introduces herself. “Yes, we have done our homework, and on behalf of the entirety of Judicial, I am so very sorry that your childhood was…less than ideal.”

“Is that what we’re calling rape, now? Less than ideal?”

Wash tilts her head. “I try not to be that blunt with known rape victims. Some handle mention of the trauma very well; others do not.”

Eve bites her lip. “I was ten. I got used to the idea fast.”

“I’m aware,” Wash replies. Eve resents the hint of pity, but ignores it.

“What enrages me,” Wash continues, “is that there is a full, standing record of the times you reported your abuse to your school, to the local authorities, and apparently even to a Judicial officer you flagged down in the street. That officer has been sacked and faces a hearing on why he ignored a citizen’s complaint of assault, by the way.”

Eve glances away. “It won’t help.”

“No, but despite our less than stellar reputation in the Mid Rim and Outer Rim territories, that is _not_ how Judicial operates,” Wash replies testily. Then her expression softens. “Did you ever recover your sister? I need to know if she’s safe, or if I need to initiate the manhunt that Bastion never called for after your mother’s…actions.”

Eve can’t help swallowing down nerves and a hated flutter of hope. It’s been six months since they lost Sunset’s trail. Jak’s contacts turned up nothing, and her own search for Sunset hadn’t helped. There are a lot of young human girls with light bronze skin and dark hair in the galaxy. “No. No, I haven’t found her. I don’t even know if she’s alive.”

Wash inclines her head. “Then we will continue to search. Our manpower is limited, and I can guarantee nothing, but more eyes are better than almost none at all.”

Eve has no idea what to say to that, so she just stares at the lieutenant. In her experience, Judicial didn’t help people. They were just placeholders so people would be fooled into believing they were safe.

“Now, I hate to keep rushing this interview—”

“Interrogation,” Eve interrupts, scowling.

Wash seems to be rolling her eyes, but it’s so subtle that Eve isn’t certain. “If you wish to call it that, you may, but you should be aware that you aren’t under arrest.”

Eve blinks a few times, not certain she heard that correctly. “I’m not?”

“No,” Wash says firmly. “You are free to leave whenever you wish, but if you were to assist in our investigation as to the events in the Yinchorri system by answering my questions, and hear me out when that is done, I would appreciate it.”

Eve thinks about it. She doesn’t think Wash is lying, but the woman is just a lieutenant. Still, it’s not like the Yinchorri shit is a secret. She answers Wash’s questions, fills in blanks. She talks about Ben’s rescue of Vilmahr’s now former employee along with his rescue of the other Jedi apprentice, Garen Muln.

Muln is kind of cute, too. She wonders if he’s as bent for guys as Ben.

Another thing she likes: Wash doesn’t correct Eve for calling Obi-Wan by the name he’d given her when they first met. Eve can see that Wash is writing down Kenobi on her flimsiplast pad as she takes notes, but otherwise lets Eve speak of events as she knew them, not through some stupid official filter.

“You didn’t have to stay and render assistance once other Jedi had arrived,” Wash says after they discuss the last battle around the_ y’tineer_. “Yourself and Thol Heeniir could both have stood down, and no one would have blamed either of you.”

Eve frowns. “I got to oversee that peace being made. I wasn’t going to stand by with my thumbs up my ass and watch it get broken by idiots. Besides, any _smart_ smuggler will tell you that war is bad for business. Maybe you’ll get more money in the short term, making runs into war zones, but you’re also risking lives—not to mention the level of competition that builds up means it’s harder to get those jobs in the first place.”

Wash glances up at her in surprise. “Vilmahr Grahrk didn’t tell any of his top lieutenants what he was conspiring to do on Yinchorr?”

Eve shrugs and tries not to feel like she’s ratting Villie out. He fucking deserves it after leaving them behind. He’d always claimed to be a coward, but Yinchorr is the first time he ever went to the trouble of proving it. “We knew that Ville made a deal for smuggling rights in the system, but he wouldn’t tell us anything specific. He just said it would be profitable. If I had known what he really wanted, I would have told him he was being stupid again.”

She hesitates. She has no idea if Elias and Pel are in custody, and while she doesn’t like them, she decides not to mention their ranking in Villie’s crew—for now. “Maybe Jones, his Second, knew, but I don’t think Villie told his cousin Olmar all of it, either.”

“He told Olmar Grahrk part of it.” Wash shifts through her folder to find a separate sheet of notes. “Olmar Grahrk knew that some sort of smuggling deal had been made, but he didn’t care about the details. He claims that if his cousin confided in him, he doesn’t recall it. Considering how much of Olmar Grahrk’s concern is revolving around his Yinchorri wives, we’re inclined to believe him.”

“They’re very nice women,” Eve comments. Olmar loves them a hell of a lot, which had surprised them all.

“That does seem to be the consensus, yes,” Wash says dryly, and then pauses. “One moment, Miss Koh. Yes?” she says, making Eve realize there is a very tiny comm expertly hidden behind Wash’s ear. Neat piece of hardware, and probably depressingly expensive. “Right now? All right. That would be for the best, I think. There are definite trust issues with Judicial among all of them.”

“Not without good reason,” Eve mutters under her breath.

Wash stands up and collects her folder’s belongings with the same precision that she began the interview with. Instead of the intimidation tactic Eve suspected, it just seems to be a Wash thing. “One of the Jedi would like to speak to you. You still have the right to refuse.”

“As long as they’re not trying to stab me with a lightsaber, it’s fine.”

Wash smiles. “No, they reserve stabbing for those who are doing their best to deserve it.”

Eve is really hoping that it’s Ben coming to see her, but it’s not. It’s the really tall bastard she heard the others call Qui-Gon Jinn. He would be completely terrifying if he didn’t also radiate an air of being a complete softie. He kind of reminds her of Jak.

Jinn sits down across from her. Unlike everyone’s filthy and bloodied appearance after the battle against that last batch of Yinchorri idiots, he is now impeccably groomed, but Eve thinks Jinn also looks tired.

“Hello again, Eve,” he greets her.

Something about his voice makes Eve sit up straighter. “Is Ben okay?” She knew her new idiot friend had been injured towards the end, but nobody looked panicked. She thought he was okay, that it was minor—

Jinn smiles. “He’s going to be. It was not a fatal injury, but it was a difficult one to treat.”

Eve nods and swallows. “That weird white light we saw before the ship’s pod came down. That was him, wasn’t it?”

Jinn regards her thoughtfully before nodding. “It was. How did you know?”

Eve smirks at him. “It just seemed like the kind of thing Ben would do. He’s kind of nuts.”

The Jedi chuckles. “Yes, he rather is, but he comes by it honestly.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Jinn nods at her. “I was his teacher, before his Knighting. I have also been accused of being…unorthodox.”

Eve raises an eyebrow, reappraising him with that in mind. Jinn seems like every inch the Republic’s classical image of a vaunted Jedi Master. Ben acts and dresses like the complete opposite, hangs out with smugglers, and hires bounty hunters if they’re available. “Did he get the disreputable friends thing from you, too, or is that just him?”

Jinn considers it. “I believe it’s both in equal measure.”

Eve smiles. Okay, she likes the Jedi. That’s four of them now in the win column aside from Dianni.

That makes the blood drain from her face. Mayvitch 7 was invaded by Yinchorri. “The Jedi Watchman for the Mayvitch system. Does anyone know if Dianni is all right?”

Jinn looks surprised. “I didn’t know you were aware of her. Yes, she’s all right. She checked in with the Council, complained profusely about the state of everything, and told Master Yoda that if he didn’t send her assistance, she was going to punt him off of a Temple rooftop.”

Eve almost chokes on sudden laughter. Yes, Dianni is definitely all right. “Thanks for telling me.”

“There is no reason why I wouldn’t.” Jinn leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “Judicial wishes to offer you and Thol Heeniir employment. They offered the same to Olmar Grahrk, but Olmar has made his acceptance contingent on two things.”

Eve couldn’t have been more surprised if the Jedi had just stripped naked in front of her. “I…what two things?” she squeaks out.

“Olmar’s first condition is that he is returned to his wives, and serves Judicial from the Yinchorr system,” Jinn answers, seemingly unsurprised that she asked about Olmar first. “The second condition for his acceptance was that you and Thol Heeniir also accepted employment with Judicial.”

“But—we’re criminals!”

Both of Jinn’s eyebrows go up. “Everyone has to make a living somehow. Those of us who do this sort of work realize quickly that ethics are far more important than minor rule-breaking.”

Ben had said something similar to her. “Go on.”

“You are competent, intelligent, have a strict code of ethics, and the only training you would require would be learning about the way Judicial functions, or the duties of the office you’d be given. You impressed Lieutenant Wash enough that she wishes to match your average monthly take as a smuggler in pay just to try and keep you here.”

Eve tries not to stare at him with her jaw hanging open. “_Why_?”

Jinn studies her in silence for a moment. “You and Thol Heeniir also have a very firm sense of justice, which is often in short supply in the systems and territories beyond the Inner Rim. You’ve experienced that lack for yourself. Judicial prides itself on doing what it can, when it can. Those who understand the difference between someone doing what they must to live, and someone committing truly vile acts—Judicial needs more people like that, Eve Koh.”

“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Eve whispers.

“I am.” Jinn offers her a faint, crooked smile. “When another was in danger, you willingly gave up your safety and security in order to see them safe. No hesitation. That’s the kind of Judicial officer I was always proud to work with on the Outer Rim. You could a great deal of good out there. There are too few of us on the ground, Eve, and it seems like every year there are even less.”

“You mean Jedi?” Eve asks.

“I mean Jedi and Judicial both,” Jinn answers.

Eve can’t meet his eyes anymore. The idea of being legitimate again, of no longer needing to fear Bastion’s stupidity or Judicial’s authority, is just as terrifying as it is appealing. “No one outside of Villie’s gang has ever treated me like I was worthy of anything.”

“And that, Eve Koh, was their mistake.”

* * * *

Eve is allowed to join Thol Heeniir after her talk with Jinn. They’re placed not in a holding cell, but in an interior space that seems devoted to decorative hydroponics. “What do you think?” she asks after exploring the room for escape routes out of habit. None of the three doors lead outside, just to more Judicial corridors with officers in each one. They act like they’re not on guard, but Eve isn’t stupid. She’s inclined to believe Jinn about Judicial’s intentions, but Judicial isn’t going to toss them out into the wilds again until they’re done with them.

Thol Heeniir twirls a strand of his striped hair around his finger and studies it as if it’s a new curiosity. “I think it is all too good to be true, but I cannot find the lie.”

Eve grimaces. “Yeah. Same here.”

She wants Olmar’s company, her big brother with his new wives who want to spoil Eve rotten. It’s the Yinchorr version of spoiling a child, which is weird, but Eve doesn’t mind.

She wants their crew to still be together. She wants Villie never to have made his stupid deal.

They could turn Judicial down. They could go home and try to rebuild a smuggling group with herself, Olmar, his wives, and Thol Heeniir.

They wouldn’t succeed. The stigma of assisting Jedi and Judicial would follow them, and jobs would be nonexistent. They’d suffer and starve because smugglers are rightfully fucking paranoid.

“It isn’t my first choice,” Eve says, which causes Thol Heeniir to look at her. “But I think it’s our best choice.”

Thol Heeniir slowly nods. “I think so, too.”

They become part of Judicial Forces with no fuss and no fanfare, unless paperwork counts as fanfare. Eve always saw the benefit to good record-keeping, which helped her keep an eye on employees, cargo, and profit for Villie’s entire organization. Getting Judicial paperwork done to become legal and official is not all that bad in comparison.

Even better, they help her to legally change her name. Eve Koh is no longer an alias; it’s who she is. She’s no longer bound by a name given to her by a mother who forgot how to love.

Of course, they put her real age on her documents, but since she’ll be eighteen in six months and legal almost everywhere except oddball planets like Alderaan, Eve doesn’t mind. She’s a lot more concerned by the fact that she’s been ranked as a lieutenant in Judicial Forces. She and Thol Heeniir have been placed with the mechanics as military support and escort (and occasional maintenance work) but still. Lieutenant. That is not the bottom of the Judicial food chain.

What the hell?

“Why would I want to waste time putting you with the new recruits?” Wash asks in annoyance when Eve corners her about it. “You and Thol Heeniir already know what you’re doing. I don’t have time to bullshit around, waiting for you both to rise in the ranks. We need help _now._”

Eve blinks a few times. “Okay, then. After I go to that Jedi funeral with Thol Heeniir, you’ve got help.”

It’s Eve’s first funeral. Aside from getting to see for herself, finally, that Ben’s dumb ass really is in one piece, it sucks rancid Hutt testicles. She expected it to be sad—people died, after all. She just didn’t expect it to be heartbreaking.

She’ll never think a Jedi cold-hearted. Not ever again.

To distract herself, Eve goes straight back to Lieutenant Commander Elia Wash. “We’re used to smuggling bullshit. Why the mechanic circuit?”

Wash puts down a stylus and rubs her eyes. Eve is starting to wonder if this woman is ever _not_ doing paperwork. “So you want us to put you out there for angry smugglers to take shots at, do you?”

When put like that, Eve can see her point. “Then there has to be another reason why it’s the mechanics—oh. It’s because mechanics don’t care who you are as long as you don’t get between them and their tools.”

Wash grins. “And that is why I wanted to hire you. Any other reason, Lieutenant Koh?”

“That is fucking weird to hear,” Eve mutters. “I’d guess you’re testing how we’ll take to being legal and law-enforcing Judicial officers.”

“A bit. The most important reason, though, is due to where these particular mechanical crews within Judicial are sent. These are the beings who most often see hazard pay for their repair jobs, Lieutenant. They work in combat zones.”

“Oh.” Eve shrugs. “It can’t be any more dangerous than Yinchorr.”

Wash studies her for a moment. “Are you an adrenaline junkie, Koh?”

Eve snorts. “No. I grew up in a garbage pit, Wash. I was _always_ in danger. The only thing that rated truly terrifying on Yinchorr was Garen Muln’s fucking flying,” she says, and Wash lets out a gale of unexpected laughter.

* * * *

Somehow, Eve always knew she would never find Sunset. Not alive, anyway.

Hope didn’t bleed out of her all at once. She had moments of excitement, of hints, and that hope remained even when the hints turned out to be dead ends. Her rank within Judicial, and Commander Wash’s blessing, gave Eve access to every missing persons file, every known illegally imprisoned or exploited individual, and holos or flatpics of every unidentified female corpse Judicial has found since Sunset disappeared.

Eve didn’t expect Judicial to have access to the Jedi Order’s files along with the others, but everything the Jedi deem to be related to Judicial’s work, they share. Eve quickly discovers that it’s one of the reasons that Judicial and the Jedi Order have a good working relationship, whereas Judicial’s working relationship with Coruscant Security or other private security forces is pretty much shit. None of them like being outranked; makes them cranky. Eve gets it, really, but when everyone is trying to hunt down the same murdering psychopath, maybe save the eyeball-grudgefucking for another time, huh?

When Eve isn’t combing through Judicial and Jedi files with the rabid intensity of a spice addict, she’s doing her job. She remains partnered with Thol Heeniir, since they already proved they could work together, shoot the enemy, and not kill each other. They co-lead a group made up of four aliens, two hers, two hirs, a him, and a them. Thol Heeniir is quiet to Villie’s loud, soft where Villie had been pointy, asks fascinating questions about logistics that Eve can discuss with him for hours, and isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty. She might mock him for spending two hours in the bath to get the grease off afterwards, but he’ll still do the work.

Eve is a fiend for plotting, for tinkering, for making the most out of what little they have —which is sometimes very, very little, as pirates often try to steal their fucking parts. Eve doesn’t mind pirates as a general rule, and has a lot of friends among them (Not. Hondo.) but when they attack a ship with a public manifest making it fucking obvious that it’s cargo for people in need, Eve doesn’t forgive. She’ll shoot them for being so damned inconsiderate, even if she has to shoot someone she used to drink with.

Their ruthless successes in keeping their defense squad alive, in keeping the mechanics they’re meant to safeguard in one piece, doesn’t go unnoticed. Eve and Thol Heeniir go from herding one squad to six of them. Each squad comes with their own sets of lieutenants. Eve and Thol Heeniir get to be lieutenant corporals—commanders, if you're not using three-thousand-year-old outdated ranking systems. Weirdos.

Still, though: what the fuck?

“Why is this different? You were eating through Vilmahr’s ranks on your way to the top spot, Eve Koh,” Thol Heeniir points out in a mild, amused voice as she stalks the empty shipboard lounge, ranting about responsibility and pirates and shooting things and how did this become her life. “Your ambition has not changed. My skills are improving. It’s a bit obvious that Judicial would make best use of our talents.”

Eve’s expression twists in a baffled sulk. “I guess I thought it was a fluke with Villie’s gang. Him and the others actually seeing that I’m not a waste of space.”

Thol Heeniir suddenly looks _very_ insulted on Eve’s behalf. “You are never a waste of space, Eve Koh,” he says softly. “Quite the opposite.” Then, before Eve can figure out what to do with that bombshell, he keeps speaking. “I am going to ask those of us who fought alone against the Yinchorri to call me by my first name. You, Ben, Garen Muln.” He pauses. “And Jango Fett, if I ever meet him again. He did not see the entire fight, as we did, but he respected us. The respect of a Mandalorian is no small thing.”

Eve swallows. A Firrerreo allowing someone to use only part of their name is a huge deal. That Thol Heeniir had allowed Villie’s gang to know his real name instead of an alias was a sign of trust in Vilmahr’s activities that the asshole definitely no longer deserves.

“Okay,” Eve agrees. “But you have to stop using both of my names when you talk to me unless you’re using my rank to impress our grunts. Why the change, Thol?”

Thol considers it. “I have not had family to share the honor of using my name in that way for a very long time. Ben and Garen have both maintained correspondence with me, and I know they have done the same for you. They treat us as equals, as valued friends.” He smiles, revealing his beautifully shaped teeth, perfection interrupted only by the slightly excessive length of his incisors. “I’ve been clanless for a long time. Perhaps I’ve decided to take one of the Republic’s sayings to heart, and I’m making my own clan.”

How that conversation led to the two of them sleeping together, Eve has no idea. Literally. If anyone asks her how they got from casual first-name basis to some seriously intense sex, Eve wouldn’t be able to answer the question. Truly, no idea at all.

Not that she’s complaining. Thol is all soft golden skin marred here and there by silvered scars that make her fingers want to read his body. The nictitating membranes for his eyes take a bit to get used to, especially one morning when she wakes up and Thol closed the membranes but forgot to close his eyelids and nearly gave Eve a fucking heart attack, but otherwise? Yeah. It feels solid. It feels like they’re sleeping with each other because they fit, not because it’s the nearest trustworthy warm body.

Eve hopes, anyway. That’s the ridiculous part. She’s starting to think about Thol beyond friendship and sex. Terrifying shit.

Thol has his own small hiccup when he asks Eve her birthdate in order to give her a present, which temporarily causes Eve’s brain to short circuit, because who does that? That’s when he finally discovers that Eve only turned eighteen Standard in 5197, six months after the Yinchorri Uprising. Given that Eve is going to be nineteen in a few months, Thol freaking out about dating someone half his age is ridiculous.

Eve finally sighs, rolls her eyes, and pats him on the head until Thol is done panicking. “I get it—no, really, I do,” she says when he looks at her in disbelief. “I’m used to playing it older. I had to, to survive, to get a job, to be taken seriously. You’re used to thinking of me as an older woman, and honestly, I might as well be, because it’s not really an act. I didn’t get a childhood, Thol. I grew up a long time ago. Besides, with the way your species ages, we’re right on the mark for actually sharing a life instead of me turning you into a widower before you’re done with middle age.”

Thol’s eyes twitch, including the nictitating membranes. “You’re…you’re assuming we will both live that long.”

Eve smiles, because he didn’t try to say they weren’t going to be long-term. It’s another one of those other things that a Firrerreo doesn’t share easily. If Thol had his way, Eve wouldn’t know how he really felt about their relationship until she was either dumped or staring down a proposal for marriage.

Thol frowns. “You think you’re sneaky.”

Eve smirks in response. “I know I am.”

That’s how it goes, and it’s weird, because Eve thinks she might actually be happy. Then Thol gives her a ring for her birthday, a gold band carved with what had once been his family crest.

“Are you proposing?” Eve asks blankly.

“No! The ring is entirely the wrong color. A ring for a mate is silver, to represent our blood,” Thol explains, his nose entertainingly wrinkled with his annoyance at having to explain it. “This ring is…it tells another of my kind that you are…that I am serious in my…”

“You mean we’re going steady,” Eve says. “Long-term relationship. Cohabitating without a license. Sharing a berth for keeps. Boyfriend and girlfriend.”

Thol winces. “If I say yes, will you stop that?”

“Maybe.”

Eve wakes up one night during the first week of eleventh month, her heart pounding. She wasn’t dreaming, but woke up like this anyway. What the hell?

Thol stirs, cracking open one eye to reveal he’s barely opened the membrane beneath to look at her properly. “What is it?”

“Something’s wrong.”

“The Trade Federation has pissed off everyone with their blockade, and we’re stuck on hiatus because we can’t take our antsy mechanics to their next job,” Thol says.

“No, not that. Aside from that, I mean.”

Eve sucks in a sudden breath, feeling like a piece of her heart was just stolen. All at once, she knows. She’s certain.

Ben was one of the first to tell her she wasn’t null in any sense of the word, even if usually just translates to good instincts. Eve is never wrong, not when it really matters.

“My sister’s dead.”

Thol sits up, eyes fully open, and gazes at her in concern. “You’re sure?”

Eve rubs at her chest, feeling her silk camisole slide beneath her fingers as she tries to fix an ache she can’t reach. “Yeah. I don’t—I don’t know what happened. But yeah. I’m sure.”

Thol wraps her up in his arms and breathes comfort into her hair. “Then I am so very sorry.”

Eve wipes at her eyes and nods. She’s already cried so many tears for Sunset. “So’m I.”

* * * *

Eve spends the rest of the year on her toes, waiting. At some point, a report is going to come in. Maybe it’ll have a flatpic. A description. Something. She doesn’t know what it will be, or where it’ll come from, but she pays particular attention to reports from the Outer Rim, no matter who’s filing them.

She doesn’t get a flatpic or a holo. She doesn’t even get a memento, a scrap of her sister’s last belongings before dying. The file is about the death of a slave on the Outer Rim, with a full description and a notation for it to be cross-referenced with missing persons. Black hair. Burnished copper skin. Humanoid female. Age ranging from a physically developed twelve to twenty, ultimately unable to be determined. No recoverable body or possessions. Death witnessed by two Jedi during a mission, with an added apology that reads as grieved and sincere: they’d tried to save her, but failed.

When Thol joins her in their office, Eve slides the reader across the desk without saying a word. Thol reads through it quickly before holding out his hand. Eve grips it tightly and bites her lip.

“This is her?”

Eve nods, not trusting herself to speak. She doesn’t want to cry again. She already knew Sunset was gone. She _knew_.

“Eve.” Thol waits until Eve is looking him in the eye. “This is not your fault. It was never your fault. It will never _be_ your fault,” he says, and the dam breaks.

Eve spends the morning sobbing into Thol’s shoulder, fingernails digging into his back through the fabric of his shirt. She wishes that for once—just fucking _once_—the universe had been kind, that it had been fair.

It takes another week to work up the courage to comm the Jedi who filed the report. Qui-Gon Jinn answers after the long delay of her signal bouncing its way through hyperspace relays on its way out to some seriously remote space.

“It’s me. I mean, it’s Eve Koh.”

“Eve. I didn’t know you were aware of the situation,” Qui-Gon says. He sounds tired and frazzled. Worn out. Worried.

Despite everything, Eve rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t calling for that, but the Naboo blockade coming down is all over the news, not to mention the stories about the Jedi Order going in, kicking ass, taking names, and maybe stealing a few credit pouches while they were at it. What the hell did Ben go and do to make you sound like a speeder wreck?”

“It’s…a long story,” Qui-Gon answers. “I’ll be willing to grant it to you later, but it’s been quite a day for me already. Did you need something?”

“Uh—yeah.” Eve bites her lip. She doesn’t know if it would be easier or harder to do this if it was a holo transmission. Instead, all she has is a voice. “I’m calling about the slave Jabba killed. The one you and Ben tried to save.”

Eve can all but feel the way Qui-Gon recedes. It’s weird when Jedi do that shit. “There was a match in the missing persons registry, then.”

“You could say that.” Eve sniffs and wipes her face. “I was calling to thank you. Thank you for trying. Also, I might kill Jabba and cause a war with the Hutts if anyone ever lets me anywhere near Tatooine, so you know, if that happens one day, you’ll know why.”

“I see.” Qui-Gon feels close again, even though neither of them have budged. “Who was she?” he asks softly.

“Sunset Gold Kohvec. She was thirteen years old. She’s been missing for over two years.” Eve has to swallow to finish. “Our mother sold her into slavery, and I never found her. That’s why I’m thanking you. You found her for me.”

“I deserve no thanks, not when I couldn’t save her.”

Eve’s throat tightens. She ignores it. “Shut up, Jinn. I’m thanking you because you tried to save her without giving a damn about who she was. You tried to help my baby sister without giving two fucks if Sunset was important or not. That’s worth my thanks.”

“_Everyone_ is important,” Qui-Gon murmurs, but there’s a hard edge to his voice.

“Yeah.” Eve still can’t believe she’s friends with people who really believe that. “Give me a call when you’re ready to talk about whatever stupid shit you and Ben got up to, all right?”

“I will,” he promises.

Eve puts her comm aside after the signal disconnects and buries her face in her hands. Her eyes stay dry, even though it feels like she just spent hours crying.

Then she straightens up and clears her throat. She has a report to write. One of Judicial’s missing persons cases is going to be closed properly.

It’s not a happy ending, not like Eve once hoped for. She’s found out the hard way that not a lot of them are.

It is an ending, though, and an ending is just a new place to start from.

* * * *

Eve doesn’t know any funeral traditions aside from the Jedi funerals she witnessed just after the Yinchorri Uprising was settled by treaty. She doesn’t exactly have a body to burn, and she’s not burning her flatpics of Sunset. They’re all she has.

Thol brings four candles to their quarters that evening, along with a _lot_ of booze, and not a bit of it is smuggler rotgut. One of the candles is white, one is gold, one is red, and one is black. They smell…nice. Thol identifies the scent as beeswax, whatever the hell that is.

Her boyfriend also brings Olmar Grahrk and his Yinchorri wives, Jenk and Fewn. Before Eve can say a word, Olmar has her wrapped up in a massive hug. He still smells exactly the same, her pseudo big-brother and his spicy Devorian skin.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs in Eve’s ear. “This isn’t how it should’ve turned out, but I’m glad you’re both gonna have peace.”

“I hope Sunset has it, yeah,” Eve replies, because she doesn’t know what else to do except be honest. Olmar has kept in touch, but she hasn’t seen him since joining Judicial. Then Jenk and Fewn are on her, fawning over Eve like she’s one of their own kids, and that is just _weird_. Eve is too startled to do anything except let them.

It’s still weird. It’s also kind of nice.

Thol has used the distraction to set up the candles in individual holders in a square configuration on the floor. He puts the alcohol and glasses in the center of the candles, and then drops five cushions into place, one on each side. Two of the cushions are next to each other on one side of the square. Eve and Thol sit there together, while Jenk, Fewn, and Olmar sit on the other three.

Funeral ritual on the floor. Okay, then. Eve’s heard of stranger traditions.

“We go in reverse, because the point is to celebrate life, not death,” Thol says, indicating for Eve to light the first candle, the black one. “Death.” Then it’s the red one. “Life’s blood for your species.” Then it’s the gold candle. “For Sunset’s spirit.” The last to be lit is the white. “For life itself.”

Thol pours out generous helpings of some sort of foreign cognac while Eve stares at the four candles. She isn’t certain how she feels. She should probably be crying, but it’s not happening. Her throat is too tight and her stomach feels like lead, but something about the candles, the scent of them, the dancing flames—it’s sort of peaceful, too.

Eve finds a glass in her hand and looks down at it, watching the flame turn the liquor into liquid gold. “What’s this for?”

“Some cultures pour a drink upon the ground for the dead, to grant the departed soul the chance to have what can no longer be imbibed,” Thol says. “Some drink themselves into stupidity after a funeral rite, but to me, that is disrespectful. I don’t think you would prefer that, either.”

“No. Probably not,” Eve murmurs. She tried drinking to forget once. Never again, thanks.

Thol holds up his glass until Eve and the others do the same. The glass—no, that’s _really_ good crystal—chimes gently as the rims of five glasses meet, as the golden liquor is stirred but not spilled.

“For my people,” Thol says, “when one is lost to us, we say this: no matter how long or short their life, what matters is that Sunset Gold lived and dreamed. We honor is her memory. We drink to dedicate our hearts to her spirit. We pledge never to forget the love we held for her.”

“We don’t leave anyone behind,” Olmar promises. “We don’t forget.” Jenk and Fewn add their own statements, but it’s in their own tongue. Eve has never heard those particular words spoken by the Yinchorri before, so she has no idea what was said, but it was probably kind.

Now Eve is crying, slow drips of tears from her eyes that roll down her face. “Thank you.”

Thol leans over and kisses the lingering dampness of the cognac from her lips. “My fiery love, your sister deserves this peace…and so do you.”

Eve thinks about it through the next round of cognac. Then she reaches out and takes Thol’s claw-tipped hand, glad when his fingers curl around hers in a gentle grip. “Maybe I found it already.”


End file.
